Fun – Page 48 – William M. Briggs

First Signs of Rampant Global Cooling Seen At Nome, Alaska?

The headline from the 12 January 2012 Nome Nugget ("Alaska's Oldest Newspaper!") strikes a chill into one's heart: Nome in long deep freeze. The Nome post of the National…

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Only 2 days left! Predictions For 2012: Submit Yours Today!

Update Predictions are closed for this year. Come back New Year's Eve to see how we've done. We'll change the rules slightly this year and ask that everybody now predict…

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Predictions For 2011. How’d We do?

Last January 1st I asked for everybody to provide verifiable predictions for the year. Time for reckoning! Tomorrow I'll ask us to provide predictions for 2012, so hold off on…

Culture Fun

Merry Federal Holiday Of December 25th That Shall Remain Nameless!

Here's proof that the unnameable Day's---a.k.a. "holiday", a.k.a. "holidays", a.k.a. (rare) "holy day"---spirit is in all of us. Plus sure evidence that Shakespeare was right (yet again). One grand lady…

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Top 10 Upsets In The NFL Over Last Decade

Today's post is over at Edgehogs. It's all self explanatory. Surf on over to comment. I'd write more, but my North Pole duties have me busier than average. Tip: Even…

Culture Fun

Iowa Professor Shocked To Discover He’s In Iowa

Stephen Bloom is a long-time professor of journalism ("Double spacing has twice as much space as single spacing", "On-line journals are called 'blogs'") at the University of Iowa. Bloom thinks…

Culture Fun

What’s Funny About Tbilisi Ordinands? Hitchens, Stalin, and Buckley

The (we hope eventually) prodigal son of William F. Buckley said in his New Yorker obituary on Christopher Hitchens: As for the wit...one day we were talking about Stalin. I…

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Top 10 Sure Things: Which NFL Games Were The Easiest To Pick?

Today's post is over at Edgehogs. I wanted to see how extreme bookies would go in making NFL picks, as judged by the probabilities of home-team wins as derived from…

Neil Jordan on Class 94: Quantifying The UnquantifiableSeptember 17, 2026
At last, an opportunity to join you in the "Quagmire of Marginal Statistics." This and later quote are from memory…
McChuck on The MRS Degree — Guest Post by Johnathan EdwardsSeptember 17, 2026
"South Korea and Japan will no longer exist, perhaps in our lifetime, if they don’t start reproducing or bringing more…
McChuck on PFAS and Preservatives: Entrenching Chemophobia through Everyday Stuff — Guest Post by Jaap HanekampSeptember 17, 2026
How many of the breast milk lab techs (doesn't that sound filthy out of context?) were wearing latex gloves, known…
JH on PFAS and Preservatives: Entrenching Chemophobia through Everyday Stuff — Guest Post by Jaap HanekampSeptember 16, 2026
The alternative to preserved clay is, sooner rather than later, mouldy clay… Does this mean to create fear? There are…
Cary Cotterman on PFAS and Preservatives: Entrenching Chemophobia through Everyday Stuff — Guest Post by Jaap HanekampSeptember 16, 2026
Growing up in the late 1950s, I played with modeling clay almost every day. Who knows, back then it was…